Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T05:36:48.276Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Borings in Devonian and Mississippian blastoids (Echinodermata)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2015

Tomasz K. Baumiller
Affiliation:
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
D. Bradford Macurda Jr.
Affiliation:
The Energists, 10260 Westheimer Suite 300, Houston, Texas 77042

Abstract

Previously undescribed holes on the calyx of single specimens of the blastoids Pentremites and Cordyloblastus are circular in plan view, penetrate the test at a right angle, and are found in the interambulacral region. The same features characterize holes on 23 specimens of the Mississippian blastoid Orophocrinus. The holes are interpreted as biogenic in origin; examples of multiple complete holes on individual specimens and of incomplete holes on some blastoids indicate that the holes represent parasitism rather than predation. The similarity of these holes to those previously described in nucleocrinids and crinoids suggests that they were produced by platyceratid gastropods or closely related taxa.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ausich, W. I., and Gurolla, R. A. 1979. Two boring organisms in Lower Mississippian community of southern Indiana. Journal of Paleontology, 53:335344.Google Scholar
Baumiller, T. K. 1990. Non-predatory drilling of Mississippian crinoids by platyceratid gastropods. Palaeontology, 33:743748.Google Scholar
Baumiller, T. K. 1993. Boreholes in Devonian blastoids and their implications for boring by platyceratids. Lethaia, 26:4147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bowsher, A. L. 1955. Origin and adaptation of platyceratid gastropods. University of Kansas Paleontological Contributions, Mollusca Article, 5:111.Google Scholar
Brett, C. E., and Bordeaux, Y. L. 1990. Taphonomy of brachiopods from a Middle Devonian shell bed: implications for the genesis of skeletal accumulations, p. 219225. In MacKinnon, D. I., Lee, D. E., and Campbell, J. D. (eds.), Brachiopods Through Time. Balkema, Rotterdam.Google Scholar
Brunton, H. 1966. Predation and shell damage in a Visean brachiopod fauna. Palaeontology, 41:355359.Google Scholar
Cameron, B. 1967. Oldest carnivorous gastropod borings found in Trentonian (Middle Ordovician) brachiopods. Journal of Paleontology, 41:147150.Google Scholar
Chatterton, B. D. E., and Whitehead, H. L. 1987. Predatory borings in the inarticulate brachiopod Artiotrea from the Silurian of Oklahoma. Lethaia, 20:6774.Google Scholar
Cline, L. M., and Beaver, H. 1957. Blastoids, p. 955960. In Ladd, H. S. (ed.), Treatise on Marine Ecology and Paleoecology, Volume 2. Geological Society of America, Memoir 67.Google Scholar
Conway Morris, S., and Bengtson, S. 1994. Cambrian predators: possible evidence from boreholes. Journal of Paleontology, 68:123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cummings, E. R., Beede, J. W., Branson, E. B., and Smith, E. A. 1905. The fauna of Salem Limestone of Indiana. 30th Annual Report of the Department of Geology and Natural Resources of Indiana, 11871486.Google Scholar
Fenton, C. L., and Fenton, M. A. 1931. Some small borings of Paleozoic age. American Midland Naturalist, 12:522528.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kabat, A. R. 1990. Predatory ecology of naticid gastropods with a review of shell boring predation. Malacologia, 32:155193.Google Scholar
Kelley, P. H., and Hansen, T. A. 1993. Evolution of the naticid gastropod predator-prey system: an evaluation of the hypothesis of escalation. Palaios, 8:358375.Google Scholar
Kelley, P. H., and Hansen, T. A. (in review). Recovery of the naticid gastropod predator-prey system from the Cretaceous–Tertiary and Eocene-Oligocene extinctions. Geological Society of London Memoir.Google Scholar
Kelly, S. M. 1984. Paleoecology and paleontology of the Indian Springs shale member, Big Clifty Formation (Middle Chesterian) in south-central Indiana. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University, Bloomington, 364 p.Google Scholar
Levin, H. L., and Fay, R. O. 1964. Relationship between Diploblastus kirkwoodensis and Platyceras (Platyceras) . Oklahoma Geology Notes, 24:2229.Google Scholar
Liljedahl, L. 1985. Ecological aspects of a silicified bivalve fauna from the Silurian of Gotland. Lethaia, 18:5366.Google Scholar
Macurda, D. B. Jr. 1965. The functional morphology and stratigraphic distribution of the Mississippian blastoid Orophocrinus . Journal of Paleontology, 39:10451096.Google Scholar
Meek, F. B., and Worthen, A. H. 1868. Geology and paleontology of Illinois, part 2. Illinois Geological Survey, Paleontology, 3:1386.Google Scholar
Miller, R. H., and Sundberg, F. A. 1984. Boring Late Cambrian organisms. Lethaia, 17:185190.Google Scholar
Rohr, P. M. 1976. Silurian predator borings in the brachiopod Dicoelosia from the Canadian Arctic. Journal of Paleontology, 50:11751179.Google Scholar
Rohr, D. M. 1991. Borings in a shell of an Ordovician (Whiterockian) gastropod. Journal of Paleontology, 65:687688.Google Scholar
Sheehan, P. M., and Lespérance, P. J. 1978. Effect of predation on population dynamics of a Devonian brachiopod. Journal of Paleontology, 52:812817.Google Scholar
Signor, P. W., and Brett, C. E. 1984. The mid-Paleozoic precursor to the Mesozoic marine revolution. Paleobiology, 10:229245.Google Scholar
Smith, S. A., Thayer, C. W., and Brett, C. E. 1985. Predation in the Paleozoic: gastropod-like drillholes in Devonian brachiopods. Science, 230:10331037.Google Scholar
Sohl, N. F. 1969. The fossil record of shell borings by snails. American Zoologist, 9:725734.Google Scholar
Steininger, J. 1853. Geognostische Beschreibung der Eifel. Franz Lintz'schen Buchhandlung, Trier, 143 p.Google Scholar
Thein, M. L., and Nitecki, M. H. 1974. Chesterian (Upper Mississippian) Gastropoda of the Illinois basin. Fieldiana Geology, 34:1238.Google Scholar
Vermeij, G. J. 1987. Evolution and Escalation. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 527 p.Google Scholar
Waters, J. A., Joyce, L. G., and Horowitz, A. S. 1978. Commensal relations on some populations of Pentremites say (Blastoidea) from the Chesterian (Late Mississippian). Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs, 10:512.Google Scholar